The present invention relates to glass substrate transporting facilities that are provided with a transporting apparatus for transporting glass substrates such that they pass through a plurality of devices for processing.
Facilities for transporting glass substrates such as that described above include processing devices such as cleaning devices, film-formation devices, exposure devices, and etching devices. By transporting a glass substrate to these processing devices, the glass substrate is subjected to desired processing, and when processing of the glass substrate at that processing device is finished, the glass substrate is carried to the next processing device.
In conventional glass substrate transporting facilities, processing devices were disposed with a spacing between them in the transporting direction of the transporting apparatus, and the transporting apparatus carried the glass substrates in a single row. In the transporting apparatus, a storage shelf for storing the glass substrates was disposed on the transporting route thereof (for example, see JP 2002-308422A).
However, in such conventional transporting facilities for glass substrates, the storage shelf is disposed on the transporting route of the transporting apparatus, and thus when a processing device breaks down it is possible to store the glass substrates in the storage shelf, but when the transporting apparatus breaks down it is not possible to use the transporting apparatus to transport the glass substrate to the storage shelf.
Also, if the transporting apparatus breaks down, there are instances in which it is preferable to remove glass substrates for which processing by the processing device has finished from that processing device. Improvements in this area were desired in this area with conventional transporting facilities.